I9IS.] IN AIR CIRCULATION OF THE GLOBE. 187 



The Fixed Anticyclones Above Existing Continental 



Glaciers. 



The Anticyclones as Agents of Glacier Alimentation. — In two 

 monographs published in 1910^ and later in my " Characteristics of 

 Existing Glaciers,"- a theory of fixed glacial anticyclones centered 

 over the snow-ice masses of Greenland and iVntarctica was put for- 

 ward upon the basis of a comprehensive review of the results of 

 polar exploration. This theory furnished an explanation for the 

 nourishment of these inland-ice masses through adiabatic melting 

 and vaporization of the ice particles of the cirri, as they are drawn 

 down within the vortex of the anticyclone, and the precipitation of 

 this moisture, generally as fine ice needles, when it comes into con- 

 tact with the glacier surface and the cooled air layer immediately 

 above it. The obvious application of this theory of alimentation 

 to the even greater continental glaciers of the Pleistocene and earlier 

 glacial cycles, was made in a separate contribution.^ For these 

 fixed anticyclones themselves, which are deserving of a special 

 name, so much evidence has now accumulated that their existence 

 can hardly be disputed, though difi:'erences of opinion will no doubt 

 arise concerning their dominance over or dependence upon the 

 usual migrating cyclonic and anticyclonic movements in the at- 

 mosphere. 



The Northern and Southern Glacial Anticyclones Compared. — 

 That a great fixed anticyclone exists within the south polar region 



1 " The Ice Masses on and About the Antarctic Continent," Zeitsch. f. 

 Gletscherk., Vol. 5, 1910, pp. 107-120; "Characteristics of the Inland-ice of 

 the Arctic Regions," Proc. Am. Philos. Soc, Vol. 49, 1910, pp. 96-109. 



2 Macmillan & Co., New York and London, 1911, Chaps. IX. and XVI. 

 and afterword. 



3 W. H. Hobbs, '' The Pleistocene Glaciation of North America Viewed 

 in the Light of Our Knowledge of Existing Continental Glaciers," Bull. Am. 

 Geogr. Soc, Vol. 43, 1911, pp. 641-659. When this theory of ahmentation 

 was announced, I supposed it to be new to science. Professor Hans Cram- 

 mer has since called my attention to a little-known paper by Fricker pub- 

 lished as early as 1893, in which a similar idea was made as a suggestion and 

 at a time when there was little known which could have been cited in its 

 support. (Dr. Karl Fricker, " Die Entstehung und Verbreitung des antark- 

 tischen Treibeises," Ein Beitrag zur Geographic der Siidpolargebiete. Leip- 

 zig, 1893, p. 96; also "Antarktis," Scholl und Grund, Berlin, 1898, pp. 187- 

 188.) 



